I have spent the last eleven years on a small combination department consisting of fourteen full time firefighters and ten volunteers. We seem to run into the same problems firefighters across the nation run into every day. We fight fires with less resources but are expected to more than what we are capable of doing. […]
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Letter to the editor: Dwindling Fire Service Part 2
By Tom Carlin, Miami Valley Area Firefighter In regard to the last article I have wrote, I feel obligated to us all to write a second response to the first. Whilst in the first its easy to pick out problems and to table this and that as a negative cause or impact. I am […]
Continue readingLetter to the editor: Dwindling fire service
By Tom Carlin, Miami Valley Area Firefighter Why are the numbers in our (Dayton, Ohio) regions fire service dwindling? Well to answer that big question I’ll list my my reasons and expand on them. 1. High turn over rates: Why do we have such high turn over rates in our area? Several reasons, the […]
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Staffing…How many firefighters does it take to……
Just mention staffing or manpower in a room of firefighters of any rank and heads will turn. It is something we are all concerned with and that very few departments are happy with. If you were at a firefighters conference and asked for a show of hands how many were satisfied with their staffing on […]
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Thoughts on Volunteer Recruitment and Retention
Hardly a week goes by when a story doesn’t pop up on my Facebook news feed or show up on some news agency page talking about the shortages of volunteer firefighter, EMS or rescue personnel. All these news agencies report the one thing we all know, volunteer firefighters are a dying breed, but very few […]
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The Generational Gap
Here we go. My thoughts on Baby Boomers vs generation X vs millennials and, why I believe we in the fire service are making a issue that shouldn’t be a issue. Baby Boomers. The people that were raised knowing if you wanted something you’d have to work for it. Stuff wasn’t just handed to you. […]
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